The Equator Principles and Sustainable Poverty

Believe it or not, there is a worldwide Sustainable Development policy not to fund development projects in Third World countries if the projects don’t meet the political agenda. It’s called the Equator Principles.

"The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are.” — Michael Oppenheimer (Environmental Defense Fund)

The reminders are put in front of us everyday. Poverty in the world. How horrible. Starving children. Unimaginable hardships. Hopelessness. Someone must do something!

Of course, the answer for the world leadership is to throw money at the problem, either through volunteer charity programs or mandatory taxation. The problem is, after subjecting us all to this redistribution of wealth in order to sentence the poor to a lifetime of breadlines, the only thing that changes is that we have more and more poor.

What other way is there? How do we eliminate these horrible conditions and create jobs in these very poor countries? Well, in a recent article I argued that “Private Property Ownership Is the Only Way to Eradicate Poverty.” It is. But there must also be an infrastructure of electricity, clean water, commerce, and transportation in place as well. One must have these things to provide jobs, health, and an upgraded standard of living for the means to purchase private property, after all.

So, it seems that a good place to start the process of eradicating world poverty and ending the bread lines would be for international companies to begin to invest in such an infrastructure. Building power plants and water treatment plants would lead to the development of housing, schools, and shopping malls. Better roads would spring up as people would need to get to the newly created jobs. Farmers would need to employ new ways to increase their output to feed new mouths as people from other regions would arrive seeking the much-needed jobs. Prosperity and hope would overtake poverty and hopelessness. It’s the very system that helped to make the United States the richest nation on earth with the highest standard of living. Finally, instead of depending on us for their daily ration of bread, these people would be able to help, not only themselves, but others in need as well. The entire world could begin to move toward a global prosperity, which our leaders say is their goal.

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